Projects
WU-STAR Internship in SoTL
The WU STAR internship provides future faculty with an opportunity to design a Scholarship of Teaching and Learning project that explores a pedagogical question within a faculty mentor’s STEM course. Participants work with their mentor and Teaching Center staff to develop and implement the project in a classroom setting. Past research projects have been presented at conferences on campus and around the country.
2014-2015 projects
Khuyen Nguyen developed “Can spacing out homework assignments enhance retention and transfer in introductory chemistry?” a project that investigated the cognitive phenomenon known as the “spacing effect,” which suggests that learning is improved when material studied once is revisited after a delay. He explored whether spacing homework problems on the same topics at intervals throughout the semester would improve final exam performance in an introductory chemistry course.
Faculty Mentor: Megan Daschbach (Chemistry)
- Nguyen presented his research to the 2015 Introduction to SoTL course. Nguyen will also present a poster on his research at the 2015 WU-CIRTL Forum at Texas A&M University.
2012-2013 projects
Heidi Arjes designed a project, “Using group work to enhance primary literature discussions” that she implemented in Introduction to Microbiology (Biology 349). Arjes investigated the effects of small-group work on students’ comprehension of, and engagement with, primary literature. Comparing students’ self-reported experience of small group discussions alongside traditional discussion sections showed that the small- group method led to greater gains in confidence in reading scientific literature, as well as greater preparation for and participation in discussions.
Faculty Mentor: Petra Levin (Biology)
- Arjes will present a poster on her research at the 2015 WU-CIRTL Forum at Texas A&M University.
Jillian Smith developed and implemented her project, “The effects of incorporating primary literature and guided discussion via optional journal-club sessions on improving student learning and engagement” project in General Biochemistry (Chemistry 481). Smith’s project focused on the effects of incorporating primary literature and guided discussion via optional journal-club sessions on improving student learning and engagement.
Faculty Mentor: Josh Maurer, (Chemistry).
- This project won the Graduate Student Senate Award for Best Presentation in Natural Sciences at the 2013 Graduate Student Research Symposium. Learn more about her winning poster: Primary Literature Discussions Study
- Smith presented her project with her mentor Eleanor Pardini in January 2013 to the members of the faculty STEM Education Research Group. In February 2013, Smith presented the results of her project at the Washington University Graduate Student Research Symposium, where she won first place in the natural sciences for her poster detailing her WU-STAR project.
Smith also presented her work at the National Meeting of the American Chemical Society conference in New Orleans, Louisiana in April 2013.
Margaret Anne Hinkle developed and implemented her project, “Investigating the use of guided inquiry and computer modeling to teach students how to apply conceptual information to solve problems” in an Environmental Geochemistry course (Earth and Planetary Sciences 444). Hinkle investigated the use of guided inquiry and computer modeling to teach students how to apply conceptual information to solve problems related to the chemical composition of natural water sources.
Faculty Mentor: Jeff Catalano (Earth and Planetary Sciences)
- In February 2013, Hinkle presented the results of her project at the Washington University Graduate Student Research Symposium.
Kristin Powell developed and implemented reading activities for “Using Primary Literature to Utilize the Scientific-Inquiry Process in an Introductory Ecology Course” (Biology 381).” Powell investigated the effectiveness of using the CREATE method (Hoskins et al., 2011) to teach students how to read scientific articles. Following this method, Powell gave students modified versions of articles, from which she had omitted the abstract, methods, and discussion sections. Students then made predictions about the content of the omitted sections. Afterward, they were given the omitted sections, which they compared to their predictions.
Faculty Mentor: Eleanor Pardini (Environmental Studies)
- Powell presented her project with her mentor Eleanor Pardini in January 2013 to the members of the faculty STEM Education Research Group.
- In February 2013, Powell presented the results of her project at the Washington University Graduate Student Research Symposium.
Lauren Woods designed and evaluated four in-class activities for “Teaching Basic Statistics in an Introductory Ecology Course (Biology 381).” The activities were designed to help students learn how to select and apply basic inferential statistics to improve their understanding of ecology research.
Faculty Mentor: Eleanor Pardini (Environmental Studies)
- In February 2013, Woods presented the results of her project at the Washington University Graduate Student Research Symposium.
Steve Kroiss designed and implemented “A Comparison of Discussion-Based Methods (CREATE) for Improving Scientific Literacy in Population Ecology (Biology 4170).” Kroiss investigated the effectiveness of modifying the CREATE method, described above, to design a worksheet that students completed when reading an article in preparation for a weekly discussion-section meeting. The worksheet required students to think deeply about the article’s structure, objectives, and results. Faculty
Mentor: Tiffany Knight (Biology)
- Kroiss presented the results of his research at the 2012 Ecological Society of America conference in Portland, Oregon.
Deanna Mendez investigated the effectiveness of a novel instructional technique that adapts a common research approach to help students investigate, and potentially discover, new properties of a set of amino acids for “Teaching the Relationship between Amino Acid Properties, Protein Folding, and Complex Formation in a Laboratory Course in Biochemistry (Biology 4522)”.
Faculty Mentor: Joe Jez (Biology)
WU-STAR Internship History
The WU-STAR internship began as a pilot program in spring 2012 with four graduate students from the Division of Biology and Biomedical Sciences (DBBS). The idea for this program was developed by Eleanor Pardini (Lecturer in Environmental Studies and Biology) and Gina Frey (Executive Director, The Teaching Center and Florence E. Moog Professor of STEM Education, Chemistry).
- Faculty Programs
- Workshops
- Consultations
- Fellowships
- Mentoring in STEM Teaching (MiST)
- Communities of Practice
- Teaching Awards
- Symposia, Institutes & Speaker Series
- Graduate Student & Postdoc Programs